The disclosures herein relate generally to information handling systems and more particularly to networked battery-powered information handling systems.
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
It has become commonplace for information handling systems to be networked together via local area network (LAN), wide area network (WAN) and storage area network (SAN) technologies. These connective technologies facilitate the flow of information in the home, small business, large enterprise and elsewhere. When desktop and other non-portable computers are coupled to a network, such computers generally have a permanent supply of AC power. However, to conserve power when these systems are not being used, they frequently revert to a low power sleep state until they are instructed to resume operation by a so-called “wake-up on LAN” or “wake on LAN” (WOL) event. A “wake-up on LAN” event can be an event as simple as the server commanding the sleeping computer to wake up. Other “wake-up on LAN” events can be a server computer calling the sleeping computer to wake it up to receive an operating system (OS) update, OS upgrade, application software update or upgrade or other new information. Since these systems are AC powered, they always have sufficient power to complete the task assigned after the wake-up on LAN event whether it's a brief software update or a lengthy software upgrade.
However, a battery-powered information handling system such as a portable computer coupled to the network via wireless technology may not have sufficient stored energy to complete a particular operation requested after a wake-up on LAN event. For example, an untethered portable computer may have sufficient battery power to perform a simple software update taking just a few minutes and yet have insufficient power to perform an operating system upgrade taking more than an hour. By “untethered” portable computer, it is meant that the portable computer is not physically coupled by wire to the network or an AC power source, but rather is wirelessly coupled to the network and is battery powered. Currently there is no way to be sure that an untethered portable computer will have sufficient energy to perform a particular operation after a wake-up on LAN event. Unfortunately, should a wake-up on LAN event occur and the untethered portable computer runs out of battery power during the requested operation, data corruption may result.
Therefore, what is needed is a way to prevent data corruption after a wake-up on LAN event occurs in a battery-powered information handling system wirelessly coupled to a network.